“I was Playing Very, Very Bad” Cries Thiem after His Federer Loss

Roger Federer cruised to a straight-set win over Dominic Thiem that kept him in hunt for the World Tour Finals semi-final qualification but it left his Austrian opponent a bit angry.

Thiem went down 6-2, 6-3 to the 20-time Grand Slam champion and that’s left him with only a mathematical chance of progressing through to the semi-finals of the ATP Finals. And he slammed his own showing, calling it ‘very, very bad’.

He said:

“I didn’t felt good out there. I mean, I was playing very, very bad. Many unusual mistakes. I made mistakes where I don’t really know where they are coming from. At the end it was way too much, too many unforced errors. The score was logical after that.”

Thiem also admitted he hadn’t taken too much liking to the courts at O2 in London where this tournament is being played, calling it a difficult surface to play on. However, he quickly added the surface did not play that big a part in his poor play and now just wants to focus on his getting his game back on top.

The Austrian, who reached his highest ranking of number four almost 12 months ago, is currently eighth on the ATP Rankings, despite having finished runner-up at the French Open earlier this year – it was his first ever Grand Slam final showing. Later he entered his first ever US Open quarter-final too.

Federer, on the other hand, was just happy to get his winning mojo back after having lost back to back matches, one to Novak Djokovic at the Paris Masters semi-finals and then in the opening match here at World Tour Finals to Kei Nishikori.

With this win, he also maintains his chance to make it to the semi-finals with Nishikori’s stunning loss at the hands of Kevin Anderson adding to his chances.

After all, with the tournament format relying on percentage of sets and games won as tie-breakers in case of players finishing on the same number of wins, Nishikori’s 6-0, 6-1 defeat at the hands of Kevin Anderson might have worked in favour of the Swiss maestro.

Anderson needed just 32 games to rattle through the first set against his Japanese opponent before racing off to a 5-0 lead in the second. Nishikori finally held his serve but that wasn’t enough as Anderson served out to register a facile win and almost seal his semi-final berth in the World Tour Finals.